Not feeling particularly soapboxish today, but I would like to mention once again that the Mannequin Depressives will be holding a CD release party tonight at the Warehouse to support their new full length 'Girls Are Evil'. Be sure to check it out.

As I said in my last post, and Mark said in his, the recent provincial election left me feeling shocked and, to say the least, somewhat out-of-sorts. But i figure you can only dwell on how much something sucks for so long before you have to find some more productive way to express your frustration (which, by the way, is one of the main reasons i do radio). I've decided the best response in this case is to do whatever i can to foster a democratic environment in what appears otherwise to be a democratic vacuum.

Here is the open letter to my new MLA that I read at the beginning of the show, and that I am mailing today. I urge you do do something similar, if you are so inclined...

Honourable Lindsey Blackett,

Conservative MLA, Calgary - North West

Dear Mr Blackett;

My name is Greg Chernoff. I live in Ranchlands, and I'm writing you in your new capacity as my elected representative in Edmonton. I didn't vote for you, but you represent my riding in the legislature anyway, and I want you to know that I intend to hold you accountable to myself, and to the thousands of other constituents that either voted for someone else, or didn't vote at all.

In fact, province-wide, the vast majority of votes were disappointingly not cast for anyone. The democratic deficit carried the day, and the only real winner in the election was apathy. Your party got over 50% of votes cast, but only 20% of all possible votes. Why do you think so many voters "elected" not to bother? And what does the low turnout say about your party's mandate to govern?

I voted. I believe that voting is the bare minimum contribution one should make to the democratic process. Those that don't care much about politics should at least vote, and consider it an "easy way out" of a bigger responsibility. But personally, I exercise my democratic rights every day. I vote by riding my bicycle or skateboard, or by taking public transit to work, by keeping a pesticide-free lawn and garden, by recycling despite our city's best efforts to discourage me, by making consumer choices that reflect my values, by working in my professional and volunteer life towards the type of change and the type of community that I feel would make the world a better place. I also vote by freely expressing my opinions whenever I get a chance.

Democracy doesn't stop at the ballot box. Albertans could have taken the "easy way out" by voting on March 3rd, but they didn't. Now I'm promising to do all I can to make sure Albertans take part in the democratic process. Too bad for them, now it'll have to be the hard way.

Your party ran on the slogan "change that works for Albertans". Personally, I'm not convinced that a regime that has been in power for almost four decades can be the party of revolution, but I feel pretty strongly that we need one in this province. If you are going to create change that works for me, you'd better start working for change. Right Now.

And I think It's time I got up and joined Greg on the soapbox regarding this week's election results. What I was most surprised about was that the heavily critical media coverage of the PC campaign was so disconnected from the ultimate voting results. Why? Was the media just wrong? That's too simplistic since their campaign judgements were subjective. Do Albertans simply ignore the media wholesale? That's hard to believe. Or do Albertans not feel a need to fall in line with media reactions? That might not be such a bad thing, unless it leaves them in a state of ignorance.

But what was perhaps most disappointing was the way that as the results were coming in the media were completely changing their tune, suggesting Stelmach ran a comprehensive and complete campaign, 'which shored up his support across the province'. Saying Taft who the day before had been praised was a failure. The morning after, newspapers that had previously called the stelmach campaign a disaster were calling him an 'Ed the Emperor'.

It is scary to think that, although there are certainly some problems with gerrymandered ridings and poll station debacles, an essentially fair election with an uncensored media turned out an almost hegemonic voting result. Mussolini and Franco and Stalin would have sure been pleased to have a public so supportive of authoritarianism.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Know who the real winner - the new Premiere of Alberta - is? Apathy. Mr. and Ms. "I'm too lazy and complacent to get off my ass, take 15 minutes out of my day, and exercise a right I have automatically, but many have fought and died for" won the election in a landslide. Can you believe that shit? 950,000 people voted, out of 2.3 million. That to me is absolutely f#&king shameful. It's infinitely more depressing to me that we could have made some real change happen in this province, at a time when I think we really need it, than it is that the tories are going to run the show (and run it with even more swagger and impunity than they had last term) for another 4 long, likely painful years.

I'm not giving up on democracy (or change) though - I plan to get a little more creative in the ways I participate. Because you know, democracy doesnt begin and end with an X on a ballot. It's what we do in between elections that now has become our only source of redemption. First thing I'm gonna do is write my new MLA a letter, and let him know that, even though I (along with about 40% of the people who voted in my riding) didn't vote for him, he is now my elected representative, and that sumbitch better effin' represent! I don't wanna give away too many surprises - I'll read the letter to y'all on march 13.

Last week's show was all about climate change and what we can do to engage ourselves in constructive discussion about it. Here are the tunes that framed it all in (below are a tonne of resources):

So, this dude Mishka Lysack came in and told us about some really cool things that are happening to try and get people to give a shit about something, anything - but specifically in this case, climate change - here's some of the suggestions he had for tapping in:

Mishka was talking about a teach-in that happened on campus back a little while ago. The idea is to get normal people with varying degrees of scientific understanding of the issue to talk about climate change and how it effects them. It comes from an initiative called focus the nation that is growing and holding teach-ins all across the world. The group was started by this dude, who wrote a book about it.

Another grassroots group working to raise awareness and engage debate related to climate change is called step it up - they've started a new chapter in Calgary, and one of the main cogs in the global wheel is a dude named Bill McKibben.

Woodbridge, R. (2005). The next world war: Tribes, cities, nations, and ecological decline. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

And here's one I would add - about the kind of paradigm shift we need to start acting on these issues - it's called dancing at the dead sea, by Alanna Mitchell.

This totally aggro dude called up right after Mishka and I got off the air, demanding to know when we were going to host a "real scientist", and wondering why media is so biased towards those who believe that climate change is actually an issue. He recommended that we all look into a fella called Dr Tim Ball - here's an interview with him, and he's also speaking at the university soon (although I couldn't find anything on the website about it...) - who is dying to tell us all why we're not actually changing the climate.

Anyway, I guess me and Mishka were naively assuming that we've all moved beyond the "is climate change even an issue?" debate, and on to the "what are we gonna do about it?" quagmire - I wonder if my caller wasn't partly expressing his frustration and hostility about the world moving on and leaving him behind. In any case, as I said last week, regardless of whether climate change is (in your opinion) a symptom of the stupid things we're doing to this planet or not, the FACT remains that we humans do some really incredibly phenominally dumb things to this planet, mostly stemming from the misapprehension that we're never going to run out of anything.

So, the tories won the election. So, there are people in this town (that listen to CJSW) that still don't think there's a problem with how we're treating the planet. So, almost no one gave a shit enough to go vote this monday. Does all this mean that democracy and hope for humanity are dead? I'd say it's up to you, and I can only speak for myself, but I'm not ready to give up. If anything, the last week's experiences have strengthened my resolve to hop up on the highest perch and let you all know why you must, at least, give a shit about something.

I'll let you stand on my box if I can stand on yours (I think Bob Dylan said that...)

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